Encounter with Death
by RosyRain
Summary: A period of time is given to those who have died. During this period, a spirit can find true peace, seek further guidance, resolve the past or be brought back to the World of the Living. SPOILERS!
1. The Case of Anna

**The Case of Anna**

"_Anna? Anna!"_

* * *

><p>A woman with long brown hair blinked her blue eyes open. <em>"Huh?"<em> The woman slowly sat up and again, blinked. She looked around her surroundings and found it to be completely dark, with exception of a pillar of light not too far away from her.

"Where… am I?" she finally managed to say upon getting up. She looked around her surroundings once more. She was alone, or at least, she thought she was. _"I should be dead, yet I am alive."_ The woman widened her eyes upon recalling what had happened. _"Edward… Edward and Father!"_

"Ah yes, you've finally arrived," a female's voice rang as the woman watched a cloaked person step into the light. "Yes, yes… Good, good… Right on schedule," the cloaked person murmured whilst nodding at the clipboard she held. "Let's see… Lady… Anna, was it? Sage Tellah's daughter of the Blue Planet?"

The woman raised a fine eyebrow, but eventually nodded in response. "May I ask where I am?"

The hooded woman raised her head, totally not expecting the question. The woman pushed her black hood back, revealing long black hair and red eyes. "Are you serious?" she asked, placing a black gloved hand on her hip.

Anna pulled her brows together.

"You _are_ serious…" the woman muttered, shaking her head. "Well Anna," she sighed, "I am Death… Well, something like that, but the name I was given was Morticia."

The brunette nodded. "Morticia, why am I here?"

"Each time a person dies, they are sent here to me and I send them to where they are supposed to be, like Heaven, Hell, the Lifestream, the Farplane, the..." The woman blinked at Anna's confused expression. "Never mind those places… Alright, take it this way. You died, right?"

Anna winced. She did not have to be so blunt about it.

Morticia nodded. "Okay, so my job is to send you to where you belong. In your case, to Heaven," she said as she pointed a finger up towards where the source of light came. "You have been a good person, and though you _did_ disobey your father's wishes you are deemed worthy of your place in Heaven for the life you had saved."

"Edward?"

The cloaked woman nodded again. "Yes, yes…" she impatiently said as she produced a pocket watch out of thin air. "Look, Anna, I do not have to explain everything. All you have to do is go into the light over there," Morticia pointed at the yellow glow to the right, "and it will be all over. If you linger anymore in this dimension, I cannot guarantee your safety, or your sanity."

Anna sighed and nodded. "There is nothing more I can do for them?" she asked. Morticia shook her head. "Then this is it…"

Morticia forced a kind smile. She was tasked with seeing these spirits off and make sure that they were heading for the right direction. It was a simple job, but the sadness, the regret, the pain and the hesitation that she would sometimes see in their eyes would get to her. "You're heading for a better place Anna," she reassured the woman as she stretched out her right arm towards the yellow glow.

Anna began heading towards the light when she heard a familiar song. It was her song. It was _their_ song.

"What's the hold up?" Morticia asked as she saw the brunette stop and run away from the light and towards the path back to the realm of the living. She widened her red eyes. The World of the Living. "Anna!" she yelled as she dashed after the woman.

"Edward! He's in danger!" the brunette cried out. Anna reached the end of the path and found herself being separated from the image of Kaipo by a glass wall.

Morticia shook her head after checking the clipboard she held. "Nope, not yet his time…" The raven-haired woman began flipping through the papers she had and raised an eyebrow. "Nope, he's not due for a _very_ long time…"

Anna watched with worry as she saw her lover take on the sahagin all alone. After half an hour though, she sighed in relief as Edward sat back on the rock he had been sitting on before and resumed playing. "Edward…" she whispered longingly as her delicate fingers touched the surface of the glass.

Morticia pulled her eyebrows together. Now that was something different emotion. Morticia could see in Anna's eyes not regret, nor sadness, nor pain, but love, pure love. It was times like these that she hated her job. She might have been tasked with sending these spirits away and into eternal peace, but that meant that they also had to settle what they had to settle during this period with her.

"Would… Would you like to speak with him, one last time Anna?" she softly asked the brunette. The woman turned around immediately and nodded. "But you _must_ promise that after this, you must be on your way," she told her. Again, Anna nodded. "Very well then."

Morticia produced a golden key out of thin air and gently pushed Anna away from glass wall. As soon as she placed the key near the wall, a golden keyhole appeared and Morticia inserted the key. "Go. You have five minutes."

Without another word, Anna ran out and into Kaipo.

* * *

><p>"<em>Edward, you must be brave. Golbez cannot be allowed to have the Crystals."<em>

"Just as I promised," Anna said as she came back from the World of the Living. "I will… I will go." Morticia smiled and nodded and escorted the woman towards the light.

"You will love it there Anna. There would be no more pain, no more sadness…" Morticia found herself saying as they neared the light.

Anna nodded. "Thank you Morticia, for giving me those last few minutes with Edward," she said before hugging the cloaked woman. Morticia smiled a bit before pushing the woman gently away.

"Off you go." Anna smiled and walked into the light. The yellow glow enveloped her and she became only a shadow. Soon enough, even her shadow was swallowed by the light.

Morticia sighed as she was left alone once again. She headed back towards the pillar of white light earlier and began skimming through the papers on her clipboard.

"Alrighty now… Who's next?"

* * *

><p><em>Alrighty then, this is just a little somethin-somthin' for my amusement, and possibly, yours. These cases would span out to different Final Fantasy games and<em>_since we're talking about deaths, there_ _WILL be spoilers to some._


	2. The Case of Biggs and Wedge Part One

**The Case of Biggs and Wedge Part One**

Morticia lazily walked around in circles, outlining the pillar of light. She saw herself as a person dead people would ask to for directions. She directed them to where they were supposed to go. Right now though, she was bored to death. Haha, the irony. Anyway, she wasn't attending anyone recently. One would think that with all the wars going on in different worlds one would…

A ping was heard, causing the pale, raven-haired woman to look up and around her. The sound signaled the arrival of a soul.

Quickly, she straightened her robes and waited for the soul to appear. Much to her surprise, _two_ souls appeared, unconscious on the black floor. She pulled out a clipboard out of her robes and flipped through the pages. "Ah… Okay…" she said to herself.

"Oww… My head," one of the souls said. They were males.

"Your foot is in my face Biggs!"

"Sorry…"

Morticia raised an eyebrow. A rowdy bunch they were. "Sir Biggs and Sir Wedge of the Gestahlian Empire?" The said men raised their heads at the sound of their names. "I have come for thee," Morticia stated in a deep, creepy voice. The two men immediately paled. "I am here to send you to…"

"Hell, we know," the man named Biggs say. "We did a lot of horrible things. We expected as much." At his side, Wedge nodded.

The woman huffed. "You guys aren't going to beg or anything?"

They shook their head. "We deserve it. Forcing that poor girl to do what she didn't want…" Wedge mumbled.

"But we suppose that it is already too late for repentance," Biggs sighed. Biggs looked over to the side and saw a blazing red light. "We head towards that direction, right?"

Morticia frowned and crossed her arms. She glanced one more time at her clipboard. "Biggs and Wedge of the Gestahlian Empire, to be sent to…" She traced a fine finger along the chart and tapped it upon finding their destination. "Hmm… That's odd… You're sent to the… Lifestream?" She flipped to the later pages and nodded. "Ah, that's why… Okay, you go on now to the Lifestream."

The two men raised an eyebrow. "The Lifestream?" they echoed in unison. The two were unfamiliar with the term.

Morticia nodded. "Head over to that green light alright? Okay, that's about it…."

"But… What's the Lifestream?" Wedge asked.

The girl with red eyes sighed and shook her head. "Gods, the questions coming from you people are getting to be repetitive." Morticia left her pillar of light and began pushing the two men up and towards the hazy green glow spewing out of a hole on the ground. "Go on, off with you. I don't have all the time in the world to talk to dead people…." Morticia looked up in thought. "Oh wait, I do, but who cares? The two of you need to get going if you want to make your next deadline."

Morticia laughed. "Get it… _dead-_line. Haha, I crack me up," she chuckled in a rather dead way. When she noticed the two souls were just staring at her weirdly, she cleared her throat and began dragging them along. "Here's where I _drop_ you off."

Biggs and Wedge looked down into the large green hole before them and swallowed the lump in their throats. "Isn't this-" Wedge began, but he was cut by a hard slap from the back, pushing him forward.

"Good luck," she said as she pushed the two dead men into the hole. She could hear their frightened screams, but she merely shrugged them off and dusted her hands off before going back to her pillar of light. "What a bunch of sissies…" she mumbled when their screams died out.


	3. The Case of Tellah

**The Case of Tellah**

Morticia sighed as she watched the old man's form materialize. _"Finally,"_ she thought. _"I thought that old man would never die."_ The old mage was one of those people that Morticia was annoyed with. Their long lives had seemingly no end and it made her impatient to wait it out. The young girl looked at the clipboard in her hand and then at the pocket watch in her other. _"If this old geezer doesn't wake up soon I'm gonna-"_ She widened her eyes as a ball of fire zoomed past her.

"Who are you and where am I?" the old man asked rather angrily as he got up onto his feet.

The girl narrowed her red eyes and wiped her shoulder. "I'm Morticia, and I'm here to send you to your rightful place."

"Rightful…" he echoed.

Morticia nodded. "Tellah of the Blue Planet, as sad as it is, you are dead and if you don't mind, please step into that yellow door over there," she instructed as she ticked of Tellah's name from her long list.

"But Golbez!"

"I thought you already handed over that responsibility to Cecil and the others," she told him.

Tellah gritted his teeth as he marched his way towards the girl. "I can't let them die!" he spat when he stopped in front of her, towering over her. Through his glasses, Morticia could see that he was glaring at her, but she did not flinch. Her red eyes were on him, unwavering and unyielding.

A few moments passed before the girl sighed and turned to her clipboard. "If you must know, they won't be dying anytime soon," she began as she flipped through the pages. "Nope, even Prince Edward will have a long way to go before he calls it quits." Tellah raised his eyebrows. "I'm not supposed to be disclosing this kind of information to anyone, but seeing as you're dead," she said, turning back to him, "I don't see the harm."

A smile crept into her face and for some unknown reason, a shiver ran down the mage's spine. "It's not like any of the dead could take me on."

Tellah looked at the child with utter disbelief and confusion. He opened his mouth to speak, but he immediately thought against it and went through the golden glowing doorway.

The smile was still on Morticia's face when he left. She crossed her arms in triumph before she murmured, "My point exactly."


	4. The Case of Gast Fameris

**The Case of Gast Fameris**

"You have to let me go back!" the man of science screamed as he desperately pounded against the glass wall separating him from his family. "Please! They need me! He's going to kill them!"

Morticia watched him with a blank look on her face. There were those that easily accepted their passing, and those that didn't. Professor Gast was one of those who didn't. "Professor, you'd be able to understand the Lifestream and inherit its wisdom now that you're dead. Hasn't that been the goal of you and your people? To seek and satisfy your thirst for knowledge?"

The man looked back at the deathly pale girl and glared at her. "Nothing is more important than my family!" Screams came from the other side of the glass and he turned and watched in horror as her wife and daughter was being dragged out of their home. "Ifalna! Aeris!" As soon as the pair was out the door, the wall grew dim and became a solid wall of darkness.

The watcher shook her head with distaste. "Foolish humans. When will you learn that you cannot have everything you want?" Morticia steadily walked up to the professor and began circling him. "You have love, yet still starve for knowledge and power."

"I didn't want power!" Gast denied. "I wanted… I wanted…"

A faint beeping echoed throughout the darkness, catching the man's attention. "Your time in this realm is up. The Lifestream is coming for you," Morticia stated, deadpanned. On cue, green tendrils began to crawl along the floor.

Gast widened his eyes and made an effort to move away from the Lifestream, but he couldn't move a single muscle in his legs. "No! Ifalna! Aeris! They need me! I have to save them. Please!" Morticia closed her eyes and turned away. "Please! At least tell me they'll be fine!"

The girl winced. She knew what would happen to the mother and daughter. They'd be experimented on. Ifalna would die in seven years and Aeris would die in the hands of an experiment gone wrong. She could lie, but as soon as he got into the Lifestream, Gast would find out.

"They'll be fine. They'd live a long, happy life together," Morticia whispered. Gast ceased resisting the pull of the Lifestream and sighed in relief.

"Thank you," he murmured, before the green glow enveloped him and pulled him down to the Lifestream, where the bitter truth would be revealed.

Morticia stood there for what seemed to be an eternity, a grim look on her face. Another faint beep caused her to shake her head and put on her blank expression again.

"Next."


	5. The Case of Yang Fang Leiden

**The Case of Yang Fang Leiden**

Morticia hummed to herself as skimmed through the various names listed on pieces of paper she had with her. Some were pretty hard to read while some were definitely impossible to pronounce. Take, for example, the surname Deusericus. "Honestly, who comes up with these names?" the raven-haired girl sighed as she threw her arms into the air.

At that moment, the familiar sound of a soul arriving echoed in the hollow darkness of her realm.

Frowning, Morticia glanced at her schedule. The next soul wasn't due for another five minutes. "Oh dear… Another one of _those_," she mused as she waited for the soul to materialize.

She didn't have to wait that long and soon enough, she found herself face to face with a rather tall, muscular man with his hair tied into a ponytail. Morticia couldn't help but sigh when the usual round of questions began.

"Where am I?"

"You're in the realm between the World of the Living and various other forms of the afterlife," she dully answered. Actually, she could easily kick this man back into the World of the Living, but she had a few minutes to kill, so she decided that it'd be best to entertain herself.

"Who are you?"

"An emissary of Death."

"I'm dead?"

Morticia shook her head. "Not quite, Sir…" The girl began to read through the names again, but she couldn't really pinpoint what his name was. "Sir… Uh… Sorry, but what's your name?"

The larger man frowned in confusion. "I am Sir Yang Fang Leiden of Fabul," he replied.

The girl nodded. "Yang Fang Leiden, Yang Fang Leiden," she hummed to herself as a pale finger ran down along the papers she had. "Aha! Found it." Morticia shook her head. "Definitely not dead yet."

"What do you mean?" the monk asked. "You earlier said that this was the realm one goes to when he dies."

"Though I did not say it that way," Morticia began, "You're right. This is where the souls of the dead go, but this is not where their journey ends." She pointed a pale finger at Yang. "You, however, are not really dead yet, like I said. That means that I have to send you back to the World of the Living."

"It does?"

Morticia made a face. For a man well-respected by his comrades and friends, he was pretty slow to catch on with this whole dead and not yet dead part. It was to be expected though, given that he was already so willing to die in order save his comrades. Morticia suspected that the man thought his sacrifice was a waste. "Yes, yes it does, now hurry up," she grunted as she headed for the glass wall that would serve as Yang's way back to the Blue Planet. "I'll open the door for you and you can be on your merry way. Save the world, be with your family, all of those things you living people do." The black wall then lit up, showing the scenery she had last opened it at.

"Is that Kaipo?" Yang asked from not very far behind her and the girl nodded.

"I had helped a soul find her peace by allowing her one last chance to see her beloved," Morticia explained. "But this is not where I drop you off. I'll drop you off at the safest place nearest to the site of where you supposedly died. Which is right about…" The image on the glass wall began to change swiftly until it came to a sudden halt at an underground, well-hidden home. "The home of the Sylphs. My, my… You're pretty lucky. Those little fairy-like things will patch you up before you know it."

Morticia held out her hand and a golden key began to materialize. On the glass wall, a golden key appeared and the red-eyed girl shoved the key into it. With a slight turn of the wrist, the door opened. "Here you are, Sir Yang Fang Leiden of Fabul, you're second shot at life."

Yang nodded. "I am gravely thankful for this opportunity you have given me…"

"The higher ups call me Morticia," she said with a shrug. "And it's not me who decide who lives and who doesn't. I'm just a guide."

"Nevertheless, thank you, Morticia," the man sincerely stated as he held out a large hand at the girl. Morticia blinked her red eyes several timed before reaching out and shaking the man's hand. Yang flinched upon contact, surprised by how cold her skin was, but he made no mention of it. It didn't matter. He was going to live and see his family, his friends, his kingdom once more.

"Alright, in you go," the raven-haired lass chirped, motioning for him to step out the door.

Yang waved goodbye and with a single step, he was back in the World of the Living. As soon as the door closed, Morticia sighed.

"Mortals and their sense of gratitude."


End file.
